How Profiles Differ From Devices
New users often ask whether to organize rules around people or hardware. Here's why profiles are the backbone and devices are just members.
The two-layer model
- A device is hardware: the iPad, the TV, the laptop. Devices join the network, get discovered, and appear in the device list.
- A profile is a person's rule set: an age tier, category rules, and schedules. Profiles never connect to anything — they're the policy.
The connection: every device is assigned to a profile, and the profile's rules apply to all of its devices.
Why this matters
The alternative — rules per device — collapses fast in a real family: your daughter upgrades her tablet and you're rebuilding her bedtime, categories, and blocks from scratch. With profiles, her new tablet joins the network, you assign it to her profile in ten seconds, and every rule she's ever had applies immediately. Person-based rules also travel correctly: when she moves from the child tier to young adult, one change covers all her devices at once.
How shared devices fit
Shared hardware (the living-room TV, the family laptop) still needs an assignment. The usual pattern: shared screens go on an adult profile for baseline protection, while each person's personal devices go on their own profile. Where a shared device needs stricter treatment for one viewer, per-profile rules on their own devices are the cleaner tool.
The habit to build
Think "who is this for?" before "what is this?" — assign devices to people, and let the policy do the rest.